25 January 1873 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: DLC, UCCL 00865)
Personal
Warner was by when I got this news, & so no doubt he will have it in the form of a small item in tomorrow’sⒶemendation Courant.1explanatory note
I meant to make three stickfuls of it for you, but I got fond of it & so it has strung out to a couple of columns.2explanatory note I am so awfully busy getting ready to lecture in New York that I ought not to have “got fond of it.” But it’s all right; everybody likes the Cunarders, though nobody knows anything about them.
Let the boys follow my copy—there’s only 2 italicised words.
Mr Reid: This is a very entertaining letter—on the reward to the sailors who effected a rescue described by Mark Twain—on British benevolence generally, and winding up with a strong puff of the Cunard line.
There is some part of it cut out on the 17th p. which I think it was rather a pity to leave out. Perhaps Mr. C. thought it might be considered irreverent.3explanatory note
The “news–—the subject of Clemens’s enclosed article for the New York Tribune—was the awarding of a gold medal and money to John Mouland and his crew (see 22 Jan 73 to Mouland, n. 1click to open link). Warner’s item appeared in the Hartford Courant of 27 January (“A Reward Well Earned,” 2).
The manuscript that Clemens enclosed is not known to survive; it was published as “British Benevolence” in the Tribune on 27 January: see Enclosure with 25 January 1873 to Whitelaw Reidclick to open link for the full text. A composing stick contained about two inches of handset type; thus “three stickfuls” equaled six column inches of material, or about five hundred words in the seven-point type commonly used in the Tribune (Pasko, 378, 529). A Tribune editorial published the same day as the article explained:
Mark Twain was on board the Cunard steamer Batavia when the gallant crew of that vessel picked up at sea, hazarding their lives, the survivors of the foundered bark Charles Ward. Readers of The Tribune will recollect his blood-stirring account of the rescue, at which he so nobly “assisted”—as the French have it. They will be glad to hear the sequel of the whole matter, which is related by Mark Twain in a characteristic letter, herewith published. The award of the gold medal and other things therewith connected give our correspondent occasion to reel off a pleasant skein of gossip about worthier topics than will be found in what he calls “the daily feast of Congress corruption and judicial rottenness.” (27 Jan 73, 4)
Clemens’s legible cancellation probably occurred in the section subtitled “what the cunard co. did for our heroes.” It is not known whether it was restored in the printed text.
William C. Wyckoff (1832–88), science editor of the Tribune since 1869 (Wilson and Fiske, 6:630).
MS, Whitelaw Reid Papers, Library of Congress (DLC).
L5 , 282–283.
The Whitelaw Reid Papers (part of the Papers of the Reid Family) were donated to DLC between 1953 and 1957 by Helen Rogers Reid (Mrs. Ogden Mills Reid).
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.